What you can do with an HP200LX Palmtop Computer

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I will be switching to a subnotebook running Redhat Linux as a replacement. I most certainly will not be running one of the pitiful, unreliable WinCE machines.

• HP200LX/6MB
• 2X clock (Times2Tech kit)
• 5MB (uncompressed size) flash card
• 14.4K fax/modem
• 3.5" travel floppy (Accurite)
• High speed parallel interface (Trans Digital) for connection to HP340 portable printer and a parallel port ZIP drive.

Appointment Book

• All my appointments ... automatically downloaded from the HP-UX 9.x X11 datebook program via filters and the connectivity pack. (The translation tools of the connectivity pack are loaded on the flash card in the HP200LX). The details of how to do this are documented in my HP-UX Datebook to HP200LX Appointments page.
• System macro to take an appointment location and show a cursor on a map (Mappoint package).
• Automatic incremental backup of ram drive to flash card.
• Automatic logging of battery level.
• System macro to bump an appointment by one day (and decrement the consecutive days count).
• Customized appointment alarm sound.

Phone Book

• One for my commonly used numbers.
• One for numbers automatically converted and downloaded from a PC PIM.

Memo

• MANY notes and documents.

Note Taker

• One file per project I work on.
• One file as a system log of changes made to the HP200LX.

Quicken

• Reconciled via the connectivity pack with my mail PC version.

Lotus 123

• Work related spreadsheets to manage limited memory areas.
• Timecard to make tracking time on multiple projects easy.
• Macro to import and graph battery level history.
• Support for CDF (Comma Delimited File) import/export.
• Company's standard trip expense report form.

Calculators

• Mortgage amortization progress (TVM).
• Linear/log power conversion (Solver).
• Instrument calibration equations (Solver).
• Profit sharing after taxes (Solver).
• Additional program, TnCalc, which simulates an HP15C.

Setup

• Custom topcard with an image of the project for which I am the firmware architect.

Data Comm

• One configuration for a serial connection for remote control of an instrument.
• One configuration for a remote terminal to my workstation.
• One configuration for a remote connection to my ISP (via card modem).
• One configuration for a callback connection to work (via card modem).

Filer

• Modified so that it can really be closed (to provide more memory for other applications).
• Launcher tie-ins for .doc, .gif, .jpg, .pcx, .bmp, and .icn (this uses C:\_dat\filer.ini).

cc:mail

• Combined with Qua!lx, a system macro and the Data Comm remote terminal to my workstation (with uqwk). I can easily send and receive internet mail via this application.

System Macros

• 2 previously mentioned for Appointment Book.
• 1 for incremental backups.
• 1 for downloading a merged Quicken file.
• 1 to shutdown system manager and exit to DOS.
• Others used as building blocks.

fastdb.tsr

• A TSR to improve performance by delaying garbage collection until an application is closed.

Net-Tamer

• Internet connectivity: ping, mail (POP3, SMTP), news, ftp, and www.
• Multiple setups for personal ISP and HP connections. Following is a setup script for SONIC (the ISP that I recommend).

  WAIT ogin:<32>-OR-#600
  BLAST Username$.ppp
  Wait ssword:
  BLAST Password$
  PPP
  

• Killfile to filter out undesired e-mail and news.
• MPack to do MIME encoding/decoding.

ACEFAX

• Fax send/receive via card modem.

HV

• Offline HTML viewer (with table and graphics support).
• My main HTML reference pages.

HTMLess

• Offline HTML to text converter.
• Makes for easier printing of HTML pages.

DOCHTML

• Freeware utility to convert MEMO documents into HTML pages.
• Preserves text enhancements and outline levels.

UN*X utilities

• ksh, vi
• cp, chmod, cpio, df, diff, du, find, grep, ls, move, mv, od, rm, uniq, wc
• awk - works great for automatically mining scheduling data from a task list.

Mappoint

• Show a cursor on a pcx image.
• Simple connection to applications via clipboard and hot key.

VR Vertical Reader

• A DOS application for the HP100/200LX which allows easier viewing of text documents.

Graphics Viewers and Utilities

• lxpic for .gif, .jpg, .pcx, and .bmp files.
• wintwin to show 2 applications side by side.
• pcxview as an alternate viewer for .pcx files.
• tpicem as an alternate viewer for .gif files.
• grabber to capture and reformat screen images

PGP

• Pretty Good Privacy: yes, the real thing. With a 2X clock HP200LX, the performance is quite reasonable.

Stacker

• For the flash card.

TREMM

• EMS (Expanded Memory) support for the HP200LX.
• I have this set up to use a 64K C: drive file as the EMS area. This area is given to stacker to use for its buffer for the flash card. As a result, I have better Stacker performance and more global DOS memory.

KS (also known as KStuff)

• Keyboard buffer stuffer.
• This is used by some of my macros and batch files.
• This is also used by FFLAUNCH.

HELV100

• An improved font for the HP200LX.

Digital Clock

• Useful from a distance.

AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS

• Dual boot configuration (for flash or modem card).
• Avoid taking DOS memory when a card won't be used for a while.

FFLAUNCH

• From the Application Manager, execute from a configurable list of built-in, .exm, or .exe programs.
• Get around the Application Manager icon/list size limit: handles all less frequently used applications using only 2 entries.
• Utilizes KS to avoid the need for a TSR.

DOSSHELL

• Support for multiple DOS sessions by swapping thru the C: drive.

LXBATCH

• A package to allow batch files which act more like System Manager applications.
• This is used as a front end to Killfile and MPack.
• This is also used as a front end to build batch files to run PGP.

Timeout

• A set of .com files to set various power-down timeouts.

Instrument Support

• Besides the previously mentioned Data Comm connection, I have a package to allow updating the flash in an HP ESG signal generator.

This page does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hewlett-Packard Company.
Copyright © 1996-1999 Thomas A. Rice. All rights reserved.

Last Modified:
Sun Aug 8 10:17:42 PDT 1999